Tanya tries to sit up, she only manages to raise her head before she resigns to the pain. Dylan notices this but chooses to ignore, pretending to be too busy watching her parents leave.

Once the door is closed, she starts,

‘I am sorry’.

He sighs, ‘What exactly are you sorry for Tanya?’

‘For not telling you, I planned to. I found out at 2 months, this was the last thing I expected. I was scared. I still hadn’t really accepted that I indeed was pregnant. I didn’t want to be a further disappointment had I lost the babies. Please understand me.’

Dylan is arranging words in his mind, trying to find the best way to ask the paternity of the new born babies. He clears his throat, twice for good measure, to make sure he wouldn’t need to repeat himself.

‘Am I the father?’ , he wants to punch himself immediately after the words roll off his tongue, he sounds like an insecure teenager, not what he was aiming for. He opens his mouth about to try and correct the question, to sound more in control. Tanya raises 2 of her fingers, signaling him to stop whatever he wants to say.

There is a look of hurt on her tired face. She takes a moment to swallow her saliva, Dylan can see the movement on her throat. She licks her lips, her tongue fixing the dryness but not the cracking.

‘It would have been better had you been angry at me Dylan, I would much rather deal and accept , your anger right now than your accusations. Who would father those kids? I am not…I am not an indecent wife’.

The last words are whispered, it’s a combination of the threatening tears and the seeming heaviness of the word describing a cheating wife.

‘Well…you can’t blame me. It doesn’t make sense that you would keep this from me for so many weeks, I am your husband!’

He stands up, fists clenched. He is getting worked up, Tanya notices.

‘I am sorry’, she apologizes again.

He looks out the window, they are on the 5th floor, the people walking below look miniature, he wonders why this is funny to him. Without a word, he opens the door and walks out.

Tanya, frustrated by her immobility, blinks back tears. The door opens again and he walks back in.

‘I love you’, he declares, taking her into his arms, kissing her forehead.

~~~

In the hours that follow, Tanya is allowed visits from family and friends. The babies are not brought out. Only Dylan and Kupa had, at this  point been allowed entry into their room to see them. Dylan had felt an unfamiliar emotion when he looked at the little bodies with tubes invading from every visible opening. This emotion, knocking the wind out of his lungs, had left him wondering if ever he had loved the boys before setting eyes on them.

Kupa had not stopped singing how cute the babies were, how tiny and fragile they looked. In that moment, even she had forgotten they were a threat. Everyone else had only been allowed to see them only through a glass into the rooms.

When Dylan walks to wife’s room door for the evening visit after leaving Kupakwashe at home, he can hear a hushed conversation going on. The loud whispers are unmistakably his mother-in-laws.

‘Do you know how many kilometers I had to walk to get to the homestead? You are not grateful, not at all! I am not saying prayer is bad , but see? I went there once and you now have twins! Twins! Zvimwe zvinoda chi vanhu Tanya, tiri vanhu vatema. (Some of these things need you to get traditional remedies). I can bring you the medicine to strengthen the boys, I’m telling you.’

Dylan waits, expecting his wife raised voice in protest. What he hears is a much lower whisper such that he has to lean in the catch the words.

‘Mhama please! Did I send you kun’anga? Stop trying to get me involved in this, if prayer will not work then it’s God’s will. I have told you I don’t need mushonga kana matombo enyu.’

Dylan , satisfied, walks in without knocking. His mother in law does not see him as she is sitting with her back to the door.

‘Even maposto…’ she is cut short by Tanya greeting her husband. She looks on, a forced smile on her face , before she excuses herself and leaves.